The New York Daily News is reporting that Bush campaign workers don’t just consider Osama bin Laden’s recent video message a boost for the President’s flagging re-election campaign. One campaign worker has taken to dsecribing the tape as “a little gift” from the terrorist. Here’s the scoop:

[The tape] refocused the nation on terrorism, which polls show helps Bush. And it reminds voters of their horror on Sept. 11 and Bush’s well-received response, as well as obliterating the recent flood of bad news for Bush.

“We want people to think ‘terrorism’ for the last four days,” said a Bush-Cheney campaign official. “And anything that raises the issue in people’s minds is good for us.”

A senior GOP strategist added, “anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush.”

He called it “a little gift,” saying it helps the President but doesn’t guarantee his reelection.

Thanks to Daily Kos for the link. Like Kos, I’m not sure that the tape works in Bush’s favor, especially given a recent Fox News poll showing a decline is support for the struggling Republican candidate, but I’m more disturbed by the cynical treatment of the tape as a political tool and the hope among Bush’s supporters that people will vote solely out of fear, that they will have “terrorism” on their minds this week.

Well, what other hope does the Bush campaign have, really. Everything has been trending against them, and if it hadn’t been for this tape and the almost universal acclaim by the punditry that it favored Bush’s reelection, their campaign was headed for a very desperate weekend indeed. Now they have something to grasp at, and grasp at they apparently will!

Those quotes from the NY Daily News are really quite priceless and I think a gross miscalculation, because they give the Dem talking heads the angle to say: so what these campaign workers are saying is that OBL does want Bush to win afterall.